


Ever Faithful

by cyranonic



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimitri survives Gronder barely, Gore, Hallucinations, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Major Illness, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Silver Snow Route, character death consistent with silver snow route, complex relationships to religion, generally a lot of medical stuff, mentions of Abyss-related social equity problems, minor unrequited Yuri/Dimitri because Yuri has good taste, shades of Yuri/Hapi if you squint, slight mention of Yuri's involvement in sex work, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26896258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyranonic/pseuds/cyranonic
Summary: After the battle of Gronder Field, Byleth claims to have seen a ghost. Yuri is skeptical. Ghosts do not show up in Abyss half-dead of their wounds and desperately crying out for their absent companions.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 19
Kudos: 82





	Ever Faithful

_ The cold earth slept below;  _

_ Above the cold sky shone;  _

_And all around,_

_With a chilling sound,_

_ From caves of ice and fields of snow  _

_ The breath of night like death did flow  _

_Beneath the sinking moon._

  
  


Balthus is pretty deep in his cups when he tells the story that night at the Wilting Rose. Yuri has had a few drinks too, although he is never as drunk as he seems. That’s a trick so old for him, he sometimes forgets he’s pretending now. 

“He said he thought he’d seen a ghost,” Balthus slurs. He finishes his cup, looks doubtfully into his pockets to see if he has enough coin for another. “Can’t be real, though right? Maybe he was dreaming? Or maybe he was drunk and didn’t want ol’ Seteth to know.” 

Balthus wheezes a laugh at his own joke. No wonder Hapi and Constance have both wandered off to bed already. 

“The day anyone can get Byleth drunk,” Yuri retorts smugly. “I’ll buy your dinner for a week. The man is… theoretically human, but I have my doubts.”

“Anyways, sad business upstairs,” Balthus sighed. “I was sorry to hear about poor Claude. Hope the sneaky little bastard got away from that mess at Gronder. Always liked him.” 

“No tears for the mad prince?” Yuri asks, raising an eyebrow. “They both did us a good turn five years back, and I don’t forget my debts.” 

“Well, Byleth says he’s a ghost, right?” Balthus says, tapping the side of his nose wisely. “So why bother to mourn him? You’re from Faerghus, right, boss? I’ve heard they all believe in ghosts up north.” 

“I’m from Faerghus,” Yuri says skeptically. “But I overcame it. I’m a recovering Faerghan.”

“I’m just saying, it’s Byleth,” Balthus shrugs. “He says he spots a ghost lurking around the east wall by twilight, I might believe him. Man’s not normal.” 

“The east wall?” Yuri asks, suddenly curious. 

“Lurking in the gardens by the east wall, apparently. Makes ya think,” Balthus says and then groans as he stretches. “I gotta piss like a geyser. You gonna have another mug or turn in for the night?” 

“You know me,” Yuri smiles easily. “Need my beauty sleep.” 

He pats Balthus on the shoulder as the man sways off to find an alley. 

Burrow street is lively by night. Yuri has been finding new beds as fast as he can, but war has a tendency to fill up places like Abyss. When the cracks open up, more people are likely to fall through them, after all. He’s doing what he can, in between occasionally pitching in upstairs when Byleth needs a hand. 

It isn’t dissimilar to his arrangement with Rhea, he notes. If they cannot retrieve the Archbishop from Enbarr alive, Yuri is already comfortably in Byleth’s good graces. 

Although it is late, Yuri does not head for his bed quite yet. He walks across the cistern bridge into the catacombs, picking his way through the dripping confusion of passages with ease. Occasionally, he hears the sounds of people. Some raised voices, some crying children with the refugees, some grunts of pain or pleasure. Just another night in Abyss. 

As he walks, however, he slides open a few doors and grated tunnels that only he knows about. Yuri prefers to know just a bit more about the subterranean geography of his home than anyone else. For every escape route, he has another escape route. For every hiding spot, he has five more. 

Which is why his gut is churning with worry. He has survived often on trusting his gut and he isn’t about to stop now. No one else would have considered it, but Yuri has slid down a broken grate on the east wall and into an abandoned cavern before. 

Secret passages make for good stories and good business, and he’s fairly certain that he was the ghost who once sent Alois Rangeld screaming back to the guard post and frightened Lysithea von Ordelia into almost obliterating him with a bolt of dark magic. 

When Yuri ducks into the passage, an old storm drain turned stagnant channel of mud, he almost relaxes. There is no sound but the occasional drip of water. A beam of moonlight faintly illuminates a corner of the room from the drain fifty feet up that Yuri knows leads out to the east wall. 

Then something shifts against the stone. A rat maybe, Yuri thinks, but even he doesn’t believe his own bullshit anymore. He loosens his sword in his sheath. He steps forward. 

As his eyes adjust to the light, he makes out a shape curled in the corner of the room. At first, Yuri’s eyes register it as some huge injured hound, shaggy fur matted with blood and flanks heaving. But as he stares, the image resolves into a man, although an enormous man. He is lying on his side, wrapped in a filthy fur cloak. He is slathered in blood and Yuri makes out a few arrow shafts, broken off, but still wedged into the gaps in his armor. Distantly, Yuri sees a matted mass of pale blonde hair. 

For a moment, Yuri looks up at the moon overhead and sighs deeply. Merciful fucking goddess, he thinks. No. Absolutely not. 

He takes in people who need help, people with nowhere else to go, people who have been used up and thrown away by the world upstairs. He does not stoop before princes and bend his knee to royalty. He’s the Savage Mockingbird, and the only law he recognizes is the one he makes himself. 

But the man on the ground is pathetic. He might be a king, but he looks every bit as used up and thrown away as Yuri’s other strays. And if he still has something to live for in this world, then why did he choose to slide down into this filthy sewer rather than seek out Byleth for aid? 

Yuri sighs and then steps forward, hoping to the goddess above that Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is too weak to fight him. 

For his trouble, he gets his clothing covered in blood, knicks his finger or a jagged piece of broken steel armor, and the half-feral maniac bites him. Bites him! Given the state he’s in, Yuri is positive he’ll get some type of infection from that. 

But, Dimitri is only semi-conscious and even then, there doesn’t seem to be much fight left in him. Yuri is a cautious man and still drags him to a room with bars on the door. There isn’t much he can do about the situation until morning, but he’s a fair enough combat medic. The hardest part is stripping the broken mass of armor and filthy clothing off of the man. Dimitri recoils into a ball once Yuri has finally gotten him naked and he is able to assess the damage. 

Infected wounds, Yuri notes, essentially everywhere. Lice in his hair and fleas already jumping out of his cloak. Oozing rashes where his armor has rubbed his skin raw. Bruises in various states of healing, and what Yuri is pretty certain are broken ribs by the way he breathes so shallowly. 

He doesn’t seem in a good state for a thorough bath, so the best Yuri can do is toss a bucket of water over him and try to rinse off the worst of the blood. Dimitri growls wordlessly and tightens his legs up to his chest, tucking his head down beneath his arms. Every now and then, he snaps at something Yuri cannot see. Types like that aren’t uncommon in Abyss. But they aren’t usually so dangerous, either. 

Yuri uses what magic he can to at least stop the bleeding. He extracts the arrowheads with caution, but Dimitri reacts less to that than he did to having his armor taken off. Yuri suspects that he’ll live through the night without bleeding out, but he’ll need a real doctor for the angry red lines of blood poisoning already appearing around many of his abrasions. 

And beyond that… well, it’s none of Yuri’s business. So long as he poses no danger to Abyss anymore, Yuri is happy to leave him to his mutterings in this dark quiet corner of nowhere for the rest of his life. He’s just cleaning up another upstairs mess, Yuri rationalizes. Once the miserable wretch is strong enough to wander somewhere else, Yuri will consider his debt paid. 

After he takes the armor back to one of his private store caches and the clothing off to be burned, he returns to Dimitri with a clean shirt, a straw palette to lie on, and a few blankets. He sets a pitcher of water near where he still lies curled on the stone floor and he puts a small bowl of clear broth behind that he case he wants to try his luck eating. 

When he locks the barred door behind him, Yuri prepares to get back to his own rooms, to shuck his ruined clothing off and have a bath to ensure he doesn’t catch any of Dimitri’s many little parasites. He’ll get a good night’s sleep and pay a healer to check in on the mess in the morning. 

From behind the door, he hears a moan. It is not a human sound. 

It reminds Yuri of a dog he’d once found in his mother’s village as a child. It’s leg had been caught in someone’s trap and the animal had spent days slowly starving, immobile, chewing its own foot out of the snare until it had collapsed from weakness. Despite himself, Yuri shivers. 

He changes his clothes and washes off the worst of the muck. Then he drags a stool back to Dimitri’s door and props himself up against the wall to wait out the night. 

\---

In the morning, or what passes for morning in Abyss where sunlight is a rare commodity, Yuri checks on Dimitri. He hasn’t crawled onto the straw yet or put on the blankets or the shirt. His skin is very hot to the touch and he’s lying in a puddle of his own piss. Yuri curses under his breath. 

He pays the healer extra for her discretion. Old Hazel is used to secrets. She’s patched up men after fights and robberies gone wrong. She’s helped numerous women from a variety of backgrounds end unwanted pregnancies. She’s even had her share of noblemen needing treatment for certain delicate infections they’d rather not confess to their wives. 

Even then, though, Yuri is not certain that she won’t recognize the king of Faerghus lying in his holding cell, and so he is generous with his purse. 

He has to help her hold Dimitri down while she cleans his wounds. He shivers as she pours burning disinfectant over him, but he doesn’t strike out. Yuri has to pry his limbs straight so that she can tend to all of them. They can worry about privacy and decorum later when the man isn’t dripping pus from an ulcer on his leg. If Dimitri was fully conscious at this point, Yuri is familiar enough with the Crest of Blaiddyd to know that he would be in serious trouble. He would fetch Balthus for help, except that he sort of hasn’t told the wolf pack yet what he has done. 

The healer gives him some medicines to reapply and some tonics for the fever. When he asks for her professional opinion, she shrugs and gives him fifty-fifty on living in his state. Yuri pries Dimitri’s jaw open and forces him to swallow the medicine. His single eye opens, unseeing but darting around the corners of the room. Yuri shakes his head, shoves him onto the straw pallet with the blanket tucked over him this time. 

He has business. Things. Stuff. Work. 

He can’t sit here all day and play nursemaid to a man with only a fifty percent shot at making it through the night. He’s already splitting his time pitching in from time to time with the war effort and Abyss is hurting. 

And Dimitri is also… clearly hurting. 

He pulls up his damned chair and waits. 

Kings and princes, Yuri decides after a long and deeply unpleasant twenty-four hours, apparently die of their wounds just as messily as everyone else. 

They spit up water when you pour it through their clenched teeth. They scratch at their infected wounds until they bleed again. They can smell like a latrine and a scrap heap had some sort of hideous love child of stench. They are perfectly capable of retching bile onto your shirt. And they have absolutely no trouble slipping into a hazy fugue, burning so hot with fever that their eye rolls back white and their breathing turns fast and foamy like a rabid dog. 

There are a few moments when Yuri is fairly certain he is about to watch Dimitri die. Once, his breath catches and his mouth hangs open, a bit of bloody drool dripping down his chin from where he has bitten his tongue. He is totally still until, what feels like a hundred years later, his chest rattles and expands again. 

Another time, he starts to shake and thrash too violently for Yuri to get near him anymore. When the fit passes, he curls his head into his arms again and whines. The sound is high and grating. 

Yuri wrinkles his nose, kneels down, and tries to sponge more cool water onto his back until the whimpering stops. 

“Dedue,” Dimitri’s voice says very faintly. He speaks in a nearly inaudible rasp. “Dedue?” 

“Sorry, friend,” Yuri says grimly. “Just a helpful little bird this time.” 

“Dedue, I’m--” Dimitri’s breath hitches. He pants, as though he can’t get enough air. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

He mutters that for another half hour until he seems to lose consciousness again. 

When morning comes, Dimitri’s temperature has come down a bit although he is still warm. He hovers between sleep and hallucination, occasionally twitching or moaning. Yuri locks him into the cell and staggers back to his own quarters to change his clothes and catch a few hours of sleep himself. He has Abyss to protect. He can’t spend all his time on one half-dead denizen. 

But he does remember, sometimes with uncomfortable clarity, how it feels to die of a fever. He remembers his own sickness, with hazy images of his mother’s agonized face hovering over him as she wiped the sweat from his brow. When he needed help, an old man off of the street gave it without question. Yuri has to at least do the same when he can. 

He needs a few more hands on deck, however, if the miserable beast has decided to survive a little longer. 

\---

“I’m sorry, what?” Hapi is first to explode when he tells the other Ashen Wolves that afternoon as they sit practicing together in the classroom. They seldom use it for real lessons anymore now that Aelfric isn’t there to lecture and lie to them. Hapi is sitting on her desk with her feet on the bench, which never would have flown before. 

“Dimitri,” Yuri repeats. “You remember him. Very polite. Freakishly strong. Rammed a spear halfway through the umbral beast’s gut and then shook my hand and told me Abyss was a lovely town.” 

“Obviously we would not forget the king of Faerghus,” Constance says with exasperation. “But I, for one, would like to know why you are keeping him in a cell in Abyss.” 

“I’m keeping him in a cell in case he decides to run away again and die of his wounds somewhere too near our potable water,” Yuri deadpans in response. “It’s pragmatic.” 

“He’s a king, Yuri-bird. He belongs upstairs with the Church types and the nobles,” Hapi reminds him unhappily. “Besides, you’re decent enough with faith magic, but it sounds like he could use a real bed and a fancy doctor.” 

“He chose to be down here,” Yuri says firmly. “We don’t rat out our people, even to the Church.” 

“Our people?” Balthus asks doubtfully. “Sorry, pal, but I’m not sure Dimitri really counts as ‘our people.’”

“Ah ha! I see your scheme,” Constance interjects with a delighted laugh. “You intend to use him as a pawn. A bargaining chip, perhaps. If you can claim to have saved his life, you might claim quite the ransom from some of the Kingdom nobles. Or the Empire, depending on how these next few months go.” 

“Alright, shady lady, enough of that,” Yuri says, which makes Constance glare at him. “Look, I’m done explaining. All you need to know is that he’s here, I’m handling it, don’t tell anyone, okay?” 

“Sure thing,” Balthus nods. 

“Alright, I guess,” Hapi says and then catches herself about to sigh. “But I’ve got just one question. Why would Dimitri come to Abyss when Byleth already spotted him at Garreg Mach?” 

“Same reason everyone comes to Abyss,” Yuri answers. “To hide.” 

“If he intends to hide from the Empire, he should surely know that Byleth and the Resistance Army would never give him up,” Constance snorts derisively. 

“Astute as always,” Yuri says with a musical lilt of mockery in his voice. “Wonder why we’re all down here then, if the Empire is the only thing making the rest of Fódlan so damned uninhabitable?” 

“I get it,” Hapi says, always quick to read Yuri’s tone. “Count me in to help.” 

“I suppose you will need my cooperation,” Constance relents. 

Balthus stands up and gives Yuri a hard clap on the shoulder that he only barely manages to stay upright after. 

“Boss,” Balthus says seriously. “You’re a softie.” 

Yuri would object to the accusation, but he moves a writing desk into Dimitri’s room that evening so that he can at least get some work done while he minds him. The room still smells disgusting and Dimitri’s hair is still crawling with lice and his wounds are still leaking with infection. But as much as Yuri might enjoy the finer things in life, he’s never been afraid to get his hands dirty. 

He was raised a filthy peasant in Faerghus after all and he’s spent enough time looking out for himself that he knows how quickly a life can be ruined. Nobles never seem to get that until it happens, as it happened for Balthus and for Constance. The palace is but a few wrong steps away from the gutter. 

But in Dimitri’s case… well, Yuri nearly got himself killed when Aelfric so much as threatened his mother. He’s not sure what he would do if someone had ambushed and killed her on the road. Go mad too, probably. 

The worst part, honestly, is the nightmares. Yuri can handle an infected cut, fever sweat, and a few fleas, but he isn’t well equipped to deal with the horrible hoarse screams that Dimitri makes whenever he drops from dozing into true sleep. 

There are a number of mad people in Abyss. 

One of them is a woman who kneels for hours every day beside the pagan shrine, murmuring quietly to herself. She is gentle, never upset, if a little confused sometimes about when and where she is. There is another man who took a head wound in a skirmish and now he speaks stammering nonsense and begs enough money to get blackout drunk every night. He’s fine company, but he won’t last long on his own. His liver is already paunched out and his eyes are yellowed.

Then there was a child just two years ago who’s mother brought him to Yuri for help. They had fled from their home in western Faerghus during the war and something had happened to the boy that he wouldn’t speak about. In fact, he wouldn’t speak at all for months. All that could be done was to give the woman a few extra rations of food and hope that time would help. 

Dimitri lies on the straw and Yuri cleans his wounds and forces medicine into his mouth and both of them flinch in unison when the nightmares come. Sometimes, Dimtri stares at the wall with his eye open, panting and shivering, but he isn’t really awake. He makes sounds that are only barely recognizable as words. 

“Father” and “forgive me” and “don’t, no, stop” and “Dedue.” Always that last one. Always “Dedue” said in the smallest and most broken voice of all.

So over the next few days Yuri sends a few little birds to flutter around and see what they can bring back to the nest concerning Gronder. He’s heard the basic report. The emperor was injured and retreated back to Enbarr, but in the process, both Kingdom and Alliance took heavy losses. Claude hasn’t been heard from, which means he’s alive and smart enough to stay that way. 

Dimitri is presumed dead by his own troops. Apparently, when Edelgard was wounded, Dimitri had pressed ahead with his vanguard while the rest of his lords retreated and ended up a pincushion. Yuri’s little birds whisper that the Church has taken in the body of a knight named Gilbert who had served under the Archbishop for years. One of his merchant contacts in the Kingdom whispers that Felix Fraldarius is Duke now that his father has fallen and he is the one leading the survivors. 

But no news of Dedue. Yuri barely remembers the man, gaining only a blurry impression of height and silence. If he was Dimitri’s servant, it’s no surprise that his body hasn’t been found. It would have burned with the rest of the infantry when the Church cleared the field. Servants from Duscur are not buried in marble tombs in the cathedral of Garreg Mach; they are piled into pits and burned to ash that will one day make fertile fields in Gronder again.

Yuri grits out a reluctant prayer to the goddess that Dedue might know, wherever he is, that he is not forgotten. Although perhaps it is no honor to be the subject of a madman’s fantasy. 

“Dedue?” Dimitri whispers as Yuri turns his face up and pours water into his mouth. Dimitri chokes and coughs although Yuri tries to keep his head upright.

“I’m flattered, really,” Yuri says, as he forces Dimitri’s mouth closed so he will swallow. “But no.”

“Dedue, I--” Dimitri mumbles once the water is down. “I should never have gone ahead. I should never have… I’m sorry.” 

Dimitri’s eye stares up towards the ceiling, but it is focused on something, not just rolling in his head anymore. 

“Ah,” Yuri finally understands. He points to where Dimitri seems to be looking. “Dedue?” 

Dimitri’s eye finally makes contact with his own. He looks empty. Wordlessly, he curls his arms back over his face and stops speaking. 

“That’s just fine, friend,” Yuri sighs as he stands and returns to his desk to wait. “I’d hate to come between you and your ghosts.” 

By the end of the week, Dimitri’s fever is down enough that Yuri decides it is time to try a bath. Balthus wrestles a wooden tub into the cell and hauls the water, while Constance brews up something she assures him will kill the lice… and confusingly make everything smell like peppermint. Hapi helps him boil bandages to finally wrap the oozing wounds once they are finished. 

Yuri has to lift Dimitri into the tub, Balthus helping with the man’s legs. Partially, it’s that he’s too weak to move. And partially, it’s that even with the fever beginning to break, Yuri still can’t get Dimitri to do anything but lie silently in the straw and occasionally murmur to someone no one else can see. Once he’s washed, Yuri hopes he can at least get the man continent again to save a bit of mess. 

It takes a few changes of water, plenty of Constance’s minty concoction, salts that Dimitri merely twitches at although it must sting his abrasions fiercely, but eventually they get him clean enough that Yuri deems him suitable for a real room with a real cot. Hapi helps slide a shirt over his head once they’ve finished wrapping his wounds so that he doesn’t have to lie naked in his blankets anymore. 

“Hey,” she says gently as Dimitri stirs a bit at the motion. “I’m Hapi. We met five years ago, remember?” 

“He remembers just fine,” Yuri says. “No head trauma to speak of.” 

“I’m not talking to you,” Hapi says with a warning in her tone. She turns back to Dimitri. “You’re in Abyss. Nobody knows that but us, though. And no one is gonna unless you want.”

Dimitri says nothing in response, but Yuri notes that his grip relaxes slightly on the sides of his head. Yuri curses under his breath. He really should have fucking said that a few days ago. 

Yuri has Dimitri moved to a room he used to use as an emergency cache for food in the early days of the war when opportunists kept robbing the supply carts in hopes of making a fortune once the harvests stopped. It is small, accessible only by a door which most people mistake for a wall, and Yuri has the only key. The scent of old grain still lingers in the air.

“Thanks for the help,” he says as the wolf pack splits off for the evening, back to their own solitary prowls. 

“Well, I shouldn’t like to be left out of such an endeavor,” Constance says primly. “House Nuvelle will never rise again unless I make powerful friends.” 

“Not sure this friend is going to be back in power soon, Coco,” Hapi says. She seems the most worried of the three. “Or ever.”

“Eh, I’ve seen worse,” Balthus adds optimistically. “Just call me if you need someone to drag more furniture around, I could use the exercise.”

Yuri salutes them as they go. Then he checks on Dimitri one final time. He’s lying on the cot, his body still pulled into a tight ball. He seems awake, but his eyes are staring at the walls in a way that does not denote total lucidity. 

“Alright then,” Yuri folds his arms. “So you’re not much of a conversationalist. Fine by me. I’ve always preferred the sound of my own voice.” 

Dimitri says nothing, but he keeps staring ahead, like the sight is paralyzing him. 

“You ever do want me to fetch Byleth, all you have to do is say so,” Yuri says. “You could finish telling him whatever you so badly needed to tell him before Seteth arrived.” 

Dimitri’s eye closes a few times, like he’s trying to blink away an irritant. 

“And I suppose if you’re not in the mood for words, you can just… clap twice if you want me to take you to Byleth,” Yuri suggests. “And blink three times if you want food. And tap your left ear if you want me to go away because I’m annoying you.” 

Yuri was hoping for a scathing look at that. Instead, Dimitri just lies there like he’s dead. 

“Any favorite books?” Yuri offers after another few minutes of silence. “I could read you something. Can’t sing, unfortunately, but I do know a lot of operas.” 

No reaction. 

“You know,” Yuri begins a little more boldly, “everyone thinks you’re dead. Upstairs, that is. Seems like you’re in agreement.” 

The silence stretches on and Yuri continues. 

“I was pretty much dead once. Died of a fever, would you believe it? No one would help. No one would spare a penny, until one old man stepped in and saved my life,” Yuri mused. “People are awful. Until they aren’t. That’s the irony of life, my friend. The world is cruel and meaningless and our sins are too great to ever atone for. Until… it isn’t. And they aren’t.”

Dimitri’s face abruptly morphs into a snarl. He puts his hands over his ears as his brow knits together. His mouth is moving, forming silent words that Yuri is not meant to hear. 

“I’ll leave you to your rest, then,” Yuri shrugs. “But in the morning, I am going to make you eat. Better accept it.”

\---

Frustratingly slowly, Yuri coaxes life back into Dimitri. He eats a little every day, although not enough. His wounds close and the red burning lines of infection fade from his skin. He can move enough to shuffle to a chamber pot and then return to lying on his side. He stops crying out for Dedue, although Yuri still catches him murmuring to himself off and on.

If nothing else, the persistent irritation of Yuri’s presence seems to motivate him to improve. He grows tired of Yuri spooning porridge into his mouth and begins to do it himself. He dislikes being touched and so he begins to change his own clothes. 

Caring for the wounds that remain open, the ones too deep to simply be closed with faith magic, proves the most difficult part. Dimitri recoils when Yuri has to touch him and now that he is getting stronger, it is a struggle to pin him down and pour antiseptic over his skin. 

“Sorry friend,” Yuri says, his smile strained into a near snarl with effort as he presses a clean cloth soaked in medicine hard onto the ulcer that has nearly eaten away Dimitri’s left thigh. “But I do not trust you to do this. And unless you would rather I sawed it off, then you... must… lie still!” 

Dimitri glares at him silently, but allows him to finish his work with seething breaths through his teeth. 

He flinches, not at the pain that the burning liquid must cause him, but everytime Yuri’s fingers make contact with his skin. It is somewhat insulting. 

“Oh, get over it,” Yuri snorts. “Yes, these filthy common hands of mine have touched your most noble leg, sire.”

Dimitri looks away and Yuri sees a muscle in his jaw tense. But he goes limp, at least attempting not to contract his entire body when Yuri puts a palm on his leg to wrap a clean bandage over the area.

“Glad you can at least appreciate the irony,” Yuri adds after another long silence. “When I was a boy, a servant hit me once for coughing too near to a Count, and yet without me, the King of Faerghus would be groveling in a sewer with his leg rotted off.” 

Dimitri lies back down and covers his face with his arm.

Yuri murmurs a few words and magic flows from the glyphs he has conjured. He isn’t doing much, just sending more blood to the area to help it heal.

When he finishes, Dimitri is staring at him, which is odd. Normally, he averts his eye or else he is staring off somewhere Yuri can’t see. 

“Teach me.” 

The voice is so rough and quiet, Yuri almost cannot believe it for a moment. He catches himself before he looks around the room, just to check that no one else has joined them.

“Well, well, well,” Yuri chuckles. “Such an intimate gesture. I’m honored, friend. Teach you what?” 

Dimitri gestures wordlessly to Yuri’s hands. It is odd to see him move with purpose. Yuri has gotten used to viewing him as a sort of broken mannequin doll whose strings occasionally jerk.

“So I can do it myself,” he rasps out. It is difficult to tell if his voice sounds like that from disuse or from an injury to his throat. 

Yuri puts the logic together in a few moments. If he can heal, he can finally have his precious solitude with the dead.

“Not much of a professor, I’m afraid,” Yuri says. “And, no offense, but I think you may be lacking in one key area to learn this kind of magic. Namely… faith.” 

Dimitri’s eye narrows, but he doesn’t back down.

“You do it. You’re not a monk,” he growls eventually. He does not object to the charge of being faithless.

Yuri’s lips twist into a slightly sardonic smile. What is it about Dimitri that keeps riling him up so badly? Normally, he can play very friendly with the rich and powerful. But Dimitri has some supernatural knack for finding his pressure points.

“Shocking, I know,” Yuri says, forcing his face into a neutral expression. “But even criminals can pray to the Goddess.” 

His faith has always been a matter of embarrassment for him. 

He ought to know better, he often thinks. He’s been disillusioned with the rest of the world’s pleasant lies, why can’t he give up this childish belief in a benevolent goddess? And he’s seen far too much to think that Sothis is up in the heavens making the world into a just and righteous place.

If Sothis could answer prayers, why doesn’t she do something about the children whose bellies begin to bloat after a week without food? Why doesn’t she do something about the young dead-eyed woman with a massive burn on her face from her noble paramour who wished her never to take another client after him? Why doesn’t she do something about the man, the king, who wants to do nothing but lie in silence with his ghosts and slowly die? 

And yet, foolishly, self-consciously, secretly, he does pray. 

“Teach me,” Dimitri repeats. “And then you can leave me be.” 

Yuri rolls his eyes and gets to his feet.

“Practice standing up for more than a few seconds first,” he concedes. “Then I’ll teach you.”

In a few more days, Dimitri can stand on his own and has been pacing around the corners of the room to prove it. He still wears nothing but the ragged stained robes Yuri has been giving him for comfort and easy access to his bandages. 

Yuri returns with a pair of breeches, a threadbare grey tunic, and a white cloth bandage to wrap around his head. 

“Put them on,” he commands. “We’re going out.” 

Dimitri stares up at him with stubborn resistance. 

“You want to learn to tend your own wounds,” Yuri shrugs. “I can teach you the magic, but magic won’t cure your blood poisoning or your fevers. We’ve got to see a healer, and I can’t have you wandering Abyss in a nightshirt.” 

Dimitri reluctantly picks up the cloth bandage. 

“Trust me, no one is going to recognize you,” Yuri sighs. “You’ve been dead for a month, plenty of folk are injured down here, and you don’t… well, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not looking very kingly right now.”

Dimitri turns his back on him while he changes. Absurd, Yuri thinks to himself. As if he hasn’t already seen the miserable bastard full-frontal for weeks on end now. 

Still, the less embittered part of him thinks, that might actually be a good sign. You can’t be a stuck-up little prude if you don’t care whether you live or die. 

Dimitri takes him through a few winding tunnels back to Burrow street and the apothecary where he found the healer who helped him bring Dimitri back from the edge of death. She is sitting out on her balcony, smoking a long pipe, as they approach. 

“Hazel,” Yuri waves to her. “I’ve got another request.” 

Hazel puts her pipe down and frowns at Dimitri, who despite his height seems like he is attempting to fade into the shadows behind Yuri. He looks every bit as wrecked as the other lowlifes wandering the street, so Yuri doubts that he has much to worry about. 

“That one lived, did he?” she asks, gesturing towards Dimitri. “Thought he’d be dead by morning.” 

“You gave me fifty-fifty odds, Hazel,” Yuri reminds her. She shrugs. 

“I lied,” she says. “Big wound on his leg still open? I charge an extra fee to take limbs off.” 

“Actually, I’ve brought him as an apprentice,” Yuri says smoothly. “Consider it a thank you for services rendered.” 

“Don’t need an apprentice,” Hazel snorts. 

“Well, he’s a big man,” Yuri claps Dimitri on the shoulder. He staggers slightly. He’s weaker than he acts, Yuri notes. Wise of him to hide that on the streets of Abyss. “Have him run your errands and make your deliveries and then let him watch you work.” 

Hazel exhales a cloud of smoke through her nose. 

“Alright then,” she relents. “He have a name?” 

“Must have lost it in the war,” Yuri replies easily. “Along with the eye.”

“Come on then, Blink,” Hazel stands up and comes down to unlock the door. “But this is still a favor, Yuri, not a payment.” 

Yuri puts his hands up. He doesn’t expect Dimitri to last long with Hazel. She’s mean and tough as boiled leather and her clients are either incredibly sad or deeply infuriating. 

Yuri is hoping that once Dimitri gets a taste of her line of work, he’ll finally relent and ask to go back upstairs to see Byleth where he belongs. 

Kings are not cut out for Abyss and once Dimitri accepts that he can neither live nor die here, he can go back to his proper place and leave Yuri his secret storeroom again. Dimitri is a killer by nature, not a healer. 

By the end of the week, the locals have taken to calling him Blink and Hazel has already set him to grinding herbs in her workshop. 

Damn him, Yuri thinks, damn him. 

  
\---

Yuri watches him constantly, although he tells himself he’s just checking on the streets or picking up a message or taking the scenic route to a meet-up. Dimitri fits into Abyss bizarrely, irrationally. It is like Yuri is the only person who can truly see him. 

While everyone else nods in passing to old Blink who doesn’t say much and has a wound on his leg that sometimes bothers him, Yuri watches the King of Faerghus running errands on Burrow street and delivering herbal powders to refugees. 

Constance claims that she watched Dimitri deftly take an order from one-legged Chalotte, who speaks in a garbled variety of street slang that even Yuri can barely parse sometimes. Balthus swears that he saw Dimitri order from an Abyss street vendor and not get stiffed a coin. 

“He’s observant,” Yuri notes, “I’ll give him that.”

Hapi rolls her eyes and visibly fights back a deeply sarcastic sigh. They are sitting in the classroom again, Hapi with a book on her lap and Yuri with a pile of various foreign currencies to sort. 

“He’s one of us, Yuri-bird,” she admonishes him. “If you’d cut it out with being so suspicious, you’d notice that he’s clearly spent time living like this before.”

“Suspicious keeps me alive,” Yuri smiles tightly. 

“Just think about it for a moment,” Hapi says firmly. “Dimitri went missing for nearly five years after he was supposedly executed in Faerghus. Where do you think he was?”

“He’s still a king,” Yuri objects. “Which means he’s still dangerous to us.” 

“Dangerous,” Hapi snorts. “Sure. I’m sure that’s the only reason you’re following him around.” 

Yuri makes a very rude hand gesture in her direction.

Constance, meanwhile, continues her campaign to attempt to charm Dimitri in hopes of being eventually rewarded with title and riches. Yuri catches her leaving him little offerings, sometimes catching him on the street while he runs Hazel’s errands and sometimes lingering outside of his room when he returns. Yuri thinks nothing of it, until she buys him an arrangement of dried flowers.

“Are you trying to marry him?” Yuri demands when she confesses. Constance raises an eyebrow but does not say no. “Shady lady, that is bold even for you.” 

“I simply thought he might enjoy a touch of beauty,” Constance replies. “It is difficult, I know, not being able to see the sunlight.” 

That evening, when Yuri makes his way to Dimitri’s room to check his wounds and reluctantly guide him through the basics of healing runes, he sees that the dried flowers have been dumped into a corner and crushed to a mass of dust. 

“Not your style?” Yuri asks, gesturing to the mess. Dimitri is still nearly silent with him, even as he closely attends to Yuri’s instructions on divine symmetry and harmonic intervals. Dimitri shakes his head at the question. 

“No flowers,” he says cryptically and then goes silent. 

Dimitri is not so naturally gifted with magic as he apparently is with fitting into life in Abyss and his progress is often painfully slow. He has a poor memory for the glyphs and his ear is unsuited to recognizing the proper tonal alignments for spells based on sacred hymns. Still, he keeps working on it. 

When he masters the basic healing spell, he has been in Abyss for nearly two months. The news from upstairs is that Byleth will march on Enbarr soon to confront his estranged former student and finally bring the Archbishop home. Most of the permanent denizens of Abyss have grown used to Blink and his long silences. 

One evening, Yuri concludes their lesson by producing a pair of scissors. 

“Your hair,” he informs Dimitri. “It’s getting long.” 

Dimitri looks down, studying the papers in front of him where he has been methodically tracing glyphs for recovery magic. His long blonde hair falls past his shoulders now and he lets it hang in a curtain over his face. The texture is so fine, it often tangles at the ends. 

He shakes his head. 

“Come on, I’m not too bad with these things,” Yuri urges him. “I cut Constance’s hair for her all the time. Used to cut Balthus’ too before he decided he wanted that ridiculous mane.”

Dimitri shakes his head again. 

“Look, I’m not trying to make this difficult, but if you want your hair long, you’ll have to take better care of it,” Yuri sighs. “In a place like Abyss, you’ll catch lice again or you’ll get mats in the back.” 

Dimitri sits silently for another moment. Then he nods jerkily. Despite the warning, he still twitches when Yuri combs his hair back out of his face and begins to trim the ends. 

“Still not a fan of my hands, huh?” Yuri asks playfully. It is a sort of game for him now to tease and even flirt with Dimitri. He’s so nonreactive, it makes it almost funny. 

“Dedue used to do this,” Dimitri replies. 

Yuri is so shocked, he nearly cuts half of Dimitri’s hair off. Dimitri usually speaks to him in monosyllables and head motions. He barely strings together sentences. And he never, ever says anything but what is absolutely necessary to get Yuri to leave him alone. 

“Dedue,” Yuri says, unsure how to continue from there. “Your vassal, right? He seemed… quite loyal.” 

“He cut my hair when we were at the academy,” Dimitri says. His voice is very low and quiet and Yuri has to strain to catch his words. “He had a steady hand. He was a good cook and a better gardener.” 

Abruptly, Yuri recalls the ruined remains of the dried flowers. 

“I can’t say I knew him well,” Yuri adds, “but I know he was very talented.” 

“He was,” Dimitri says. His tone is oddly urgent, like he needs Yuri to agree with this. Without seeing his face, it is difficult for Yuri to say why. “He was so… talented.” 

Yuri trims another lock and a few golden curls flutter to the ground. Dimitri represses a shiver. 

“Do you still see him?” Yuri asks quietly. 

“Always,” Dimitri whispers in response. “Always.” 

“This isn’t really my place, but…” Yuri pauses. He straightens his scissors and makes a few more cuts. It isn’t much of a haircut, but it will do for now. “I think your friend would be glad to see you still alive.” 

Unexpectedly, Dimitri laughs, but it is a very dark and brutal sort of laugh. 

“I’m sure,” Dimitri says. “He died for me, after all.” 

“He died in a war,” Yuri counters. “That’s just how it goes, friend. There’s nothing more to be done. Byleth will handle it all now.”

“Rodrigue and Gilbert died for me as well, but…” Dimitri says. He cannot seem to stop his single-minded focus now that he is talking. Yuri has no idea what has suddenly changed, but it is like Dimitri is confessing to him, as though he is a priest with the power to grant him absolution. “But Dedue is the one I see the most.” 

“Do you want to keep seeing him?” Yuri asks. 

“Yes,” Dimitri says and he sounds breathless. Yuri still cannot see his face. The hair is falling away from his shoulders now and he has lowered his chin to his chest. His enormous scarred hands are twisted together in his lap. “Yes, I want to see him. It is perverse, but… I don’t want him gone yet, even if that would mean he has found his rest.” 

What was it that Seteth had said about Byleth’s ghost story? A lost spirit, seeking guidance, that was it. 

For reasons beyond his comprehension, Yuri has apparently become the source of guidance. 

“What is it that you need to say?” Yuri finally asks, setting the scissors down and sitting in front of Dimitri. 

“I--” Dimitri begins. His jaw is clenched tight and the shadow beneath his eye is as dark as a bruise. “I have… I need to explain… I just… my sins are so great.” 

“I swear to you, I have heard worse,” Yuri assures him. “I have, as a rule, always heard worse.” 

“Dedue is dead because of me,” Dimitri says stiffly. “And I am still… in love with him.”

Yuri stares. This is the weirdest fucking day of his life. 

At his long silence, Dimitri looks up at him. His expression is pained and grimly disgusted. 

“I know,” he says with a grimace. “I know.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Yuri finally says, “just trying to wrap my brain around that for a minute. You, the King of Faerghus, were in love with Dedue, your servant, from Duscur? Did you ever tell him?”

“Of course not,” Dimitri says bitterly. “How could I? My feelings are... disgusting.”

Yuri squints. 

“I’m not sure if you realize who you’re talking to, friend,” he says carefully. “But in case you haven’t noticed my whole… everything, I’m not really a traditionalist. There are plenty of noblemen with a soft spot for sweet commoner boys like me and their money spends as good as anyone else's.” 

“Oh,” Dimitri looks perturbed. There is a shadow of the kid he’d been when they first met, a little too polite for his own good. “But, I mean… Dedue saw himself as my servant, never my equal. How could I ever ask? He wouldn’t even call me by my name.” 

“Ah,” Yuri says, finally beginning to understand. Despite himself, he kind of likes Dimitri for this. Most men in his position would never have agonized over propositioning their own servants. “That’s hard, friend.” 

“Hard?” Dimitri asks. He looks baffled. “That’s all you have to say?” 

“Pretty much,” Yuri nods. “Fortune threw you a really capricious tough nut, there.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” Dimitri asks. He leans forward, and Yuri can see his cheeks are flushed with the passion. “What now?” 

“I have no idea,” Yuri replies. “But you can stay as long as you need. You have a bed here. And Hazel seems to have taken a shine to you. If you’re feeling low, I’ll buy you a drink and lend an ear. That’s pretty much all I can offer.” 

Dimitri clams up again abruptly, retreating back into himself. 

“And the offer still stands, if you ever want to see Byleth,” Yuri offers. “Finish that conversation you started.” 

Dimitri shakes his head very hard. 

“In that case… well, you said you wanted to learn,” Yuri suggests hesitantly. “Would you like to pray for him?” 

Dimitri nods. 

Yuri never prays in front of other people if he can help it. But he finds it oddly reassuring to kneel down in his old storage room beside Dimitri and murmur a few prayers for the dead. He spends so much time fighting now, fighting in the war, fighting for Abyss, fighting to keep the Savage Mockingbird’s undisputed status as master of Fódlan’s underworld. 

His hand strays to the small leather notebook he keeps in his satchel as he prays. 

\---

“You don’t happen to remember much about Dedue, eh Balthus?” Yuri asks another late evening at the Wilted Rose. 

“Dedue?” Balthus makes a face of concentration. He’s not as drunk as usual on account of a whole roasted capon he’s managed to get his hands on, probably bought with money not his own. “Not really, why ask me?” 

“You’re big and… punchy,” Yuri shrugs. “Maybe you had a lesson together, I don’t know.” 

“Dedue was from Duscur, right?” Hapi cuts in. She’s been cramming bites of the meat into her mouth whenever Balthus isn’t looking and her cheeks are as plump as a little squirrel. “The lady who took me was always going on about that. She said everyone in the Faerghus hates people from Duscur.” 

“Not everyone,” Yuri says cryptically. 

“Tis merely the inevitable fruit of defeat,” Constance sighs. “Those who fail in battle are doomed to persecution and infamy… until of course certain remarkable individuals labor to restore their lost reputation.” 

“Coco, you’re changing the subject again,” Hapi warns her. Constance looks aghast. 

“I am merely suggesting that I felt a certain kinship with Dedue as a fellow outcast,” Constance says snippily. Then she softens a tiny bit. “And he did once… lend me his cloak when the sun rather unexpectedly came out.” 

“What’s this have to do with anything, boss?” Balthus asks in between picking his teeth with a bone. Disgusting man, Yuri thinks. Disgusting and yet blessed by such an incredible physique, his greasy mouth only adds to it. “Dedue’s dead last I heard. Killed at Gronder like almost everyone else.” 

“Almost,” Yuri says by way of explanation. 

“It seems like, uh, Blink has been settling in,” Hapi notes. “I saw him heal Flip’s hand after she nicked it in the scrap pile again.” 

“I think he has befriended Jasper as well,” Constance adds. “Or possibly he just got trapped and didn’t know how to get the senile old fool to stop talking to him.” 

“Still think he’s actually going back upstairs soon? He’s starting to seem at home,” Balthus asks. He is counting out his coins sadly, as though piling them up one more time might somehow produce enough for another drink. 

“He’ll leave,” Yuri says confidently. “We’re nothing but a quick shelter in a storm for a man like that. We should get back to business.”

“What business?” Hapi scoffs. “We’re drinking? Most of us are halfway to drunk, except maybe Coco, who is totally sloshed.” 

“I object!” Constance cries just as she accidentally slides off of her stool. 

“Abyss business,” Yuri says with a thin smile. “Constance, you mentioned you saw that new face hanging around the library again. I think we ought to set someone to watch him.” 

“I can rough him up if you think he’s no good,” Balthus offers. 

“Maybe,” Yuri shrugs. “But I’m going to send Marcus to watch him for a few days first. I want to know why he’s sniffing around my people. Constance, see if you can figure out what he was reading and Hapi, would you mind checking the perimeter tomorrow?” 

“Sure, Yuri-bird,” Hapi agrees and then shoots him an all-too-knowing smile. “Good business meeting.” 

\---

Yuri goes upstairs for the war meeting as Byleth and the Resistance army make the final preparations for their assault on Enbarr. Seteth is concerned about their numbers after the strange destruction of Merceus, but Byleth believes an overextended assault can end the war before Edelgard has time to regroup. 

It is odd to see Byleth talk about his former favorite student like that. Yuri has a debt to Edelgard as well, in a way. Just like Dimitri, she lent a hand when he needed Aelfric dealt with. 

The bond between Byleth and Edelgard was powerful, however. The other former Black Eagles who stood with Byleth over their emperor clearly feel similarly conflicted. Let Dimitri stay out of it then, Yuri thinks idly as he listens to others talk about supply lines and scouting parties. Let Byleth resolve his conflict with one student before he deals with another. 

Yuri volunteers to stay behind and keep watch over the monastery. Byleth apparently needs Constance and Balthus for the strike team, which leaves Yuri a bit shorthanded, particularly with that stranger poking around the shadow library, but it’s nothing he can’t handle alone. 

Or at least so he thinks, until the Resistance army has left. 

He is crossing the bridge over the catacombs when he hears someone calling his name. It’s Flip, the scavenger girl with a knack for polishing up old weapons and reselling them to suckers on the surface. She is dragging someone over her small shoulders, although she can barely support the weight. Yuri spots black magic burns up her entire left side as well. 

The body is Marcus, the man he set to watch their library visitor. No, the _boy_ he set to watch. Marcus is sixteen or seventeen at most. 

Marcus has an arrow shaft in his gut. He slumps to the ground as soon as Flip can no longer carry him. Yuri can see that his face is pouring with sweat and there is foam at the edges of his mouth. Poison, probably. 

“Run to the healer,” Yuri commands Flip, his hands already pressed to the wound in Marcus’ belly. “Get an antitoxin.” 

But Flip can barely stand anymore. She limps a few more feet towards the stairs and then grabs the wall for support. 

“I’m sorry, Yuri,” she pants. “I couldn’t run fast enough. Shoulda spotted the mages, but I…” 

The girl slumps down to the ground. Marcus is breathing faster and faster. Yuri summons the strongest healing magic he can, pouring holy strength ino Marcus’ body so that it has a chance to hang on while the poison is ravaging him from within. 

As he does, he hears footsteps racing down the stairs and suddenly there is Dimitri. His combat instincts haven’t dulled, or at least his hearing is better than his eyesight. 

Without hesitation, he scoops Flip into his arms. 

“We shouldn’t move him,” Yuri says roughly. “Bring me something from Hazel’s for the poison.” 

Dimitri nods and runs with Flip cradled against his shoulder. 

Marcus begins to shake violently all over. 

“M-mages,” he says through clenched teeth. “By the… west… cistern. B-black masks.” 

“Good man,” Yuri reassures him, sending another surge of magic into Marcus’ body. He needs to get that arrow out. Who knows how much of the toxin is still leaching into the wound? “You did well. Now, just, relax for me.” 

Marcus retches up a bit of bile and chokes until Yuri helps clear his mouth. As carefully as he can, Yuri begins to pull on the arrow shaft, trying not to puncture or rip anything else in the boy’s delicate stomach. Marcus screams as it moves and Yuri stops pulling and uses another charge of healing to clot his blood. The scream echoes in the damp cavernous passage. 

“It’s alright,” Yuri says firmly. “But you need to relax, Marcus, you can’t move.” 

Marcus whimpers. 

“The west… ci-cistern,” he mumbles again. His eyes are glassy.

Yuri reaches for the arrow, holding Marcus as still as possible as he pulls again. This time, Marcus doesn’t scream. He’s passed out. Yuri pulls the arrow out until the tip is finally free and then he places both hands over the wound and puts all the healing magic he can into it. 

The wound does not close. Yuri curses and tries again. 

He hears Dimitri’s footsteps on the stairs behind him. There is the slightest hesitation on his left where his wounds were the worst. 

He drops to the ground beside Yuri, a vial of antitoxin in his hands that he is already beginning to uncap. Yuri seizes his wrist to stop him from opening it. 

“Save it,” he manages to get out. 

Dimitri’s chest is rising and falling rapidly as he stares at Yuri in momentary confusion. Then he looks back down at the body on the ground. Marcus’ chest has stilled and his eyes stare blindly up at the ceiling. Yuri is covered in his blood. 

Yuri tries to avoid looking at Dimitri’s face, but he catches a glimpse from the corner of his eye. He looks devastated. His choppy mop of hair is tousled after his run and his lips are pressed together with pain. 

And then Yuri feels a hand gently touch his shoulder. That is too much. Yuri jerks back to his feet. 

“I’ll take care of the body,” he says harshly. “Go check on the other kid.” 

Dimitri’s voice starts the first syllable of something, but Yuri cuts him off. 

“Just go.” 

Marcus had no family, at least. Or to be more accurate, Yuri’s gang was his family. Yuri sees that the body is properly tended and he tosses a few bits of old dust out of one of the ancient marble crypts deep in the lower tunnels. Let Marcus steal a bishop’s grave. 

After he’s taken care of that, Yuri visits the west cistern. 

He comes back around what must be dawn upstairs with his sword bloodied and his hands shaking. When he returns to his quarters, he pulls the small leather notebook out of his satchel and lays it on the desk. 

There is a knock at the door. Yuri doesn’t respond, but Dimitri comes in anyways. 

“How’s the girl?” Yuri asks dully. 

“She’ll have some scars,” Dimitri replies quietly. “But she’s alright.” 

Yuri nods. He dips his quill but doesn’t write with it yet. 

Dimitri hovers in the doorway. Yuri suddenly remembers that he still has blood splattered across his clothes. 

“You have something else to say?” he asks stiffly. 

“I--” Dimitri starts and then he stops and swallows. “Your book. What is it?” 

Yuri looks down at the pages. There’s plenty of names. Plenty of blank pages still, too. People he lost in fights, people he lost to sickness, people he lost to their own demons driving them swiftly into the grave. 

“Names,” Yuri says. “Of the people I failed to protect. My personal roster of ghosts, if you will.” 

Dimitri continues to hover near the door. Yuri wants to turn and look at him, to try to gauge by his face or his posture what he wants. Normally, Yuri is good at reading people’s intentions. He doesn’t feel secure unless he has a clear picture of exactly what someone wants from him. 

Unfortunately, he’s not sure if he trusts himself to turn around just yet. The quill is trembling in his hand and a drop of ink falls onto the desk. 

“I understand,” Dimitri finally says. “I understand why you need to remember them.” 

Yuri scrunches his face and then gets a better hold of himself. He carefully writes Marcus’ name in the book and waits as the ink dries. Then he crosses his legs and turns in his chair, a blank expression back on his face. 

Dimitri is watching him carefully, that single blue searching Yuri’s expression. His sleeves are rolled up and there is a bit of blood on the front of his shirt. He stands with his weight on his good leg. 

There is that jolt again, that moment where Yuri reminds himself that this is the King of Faerghus looking at him. 

“I’m not sure I have much more to teach you,” Yuri breaks the silence. “Concerning faith, that is. If you want to pick locks or something…” 

“Would you like to pray for him?” Dimitri asks. 

Yuri swallows. The ink in his notebook has dried. He shuts it and tucks it back into his pocket. He nods. 

They light a candle on the floor of Yuri’s room. Yuri chants another prayer for the dead under his breath. He glances up and sees Dimitri, the candlelight reflected in his eye, staring up at someone right behind where Yuri is sitting. 

For a moment, Yuri considers believing in ghosts. 

After all, he’s been a ghost several times himself. He sent the monastery’s students screaming back to their beds when he popped unexpectedly out of sewer grates. 

Who’s to say Dimitri doesn’t see his beloved Dedue, forever silent and unattainable now, hovering over Yuri’s shoulder? Who’s to say that if he did bring Dimitri upstairs to finally finish his conversation with Byleth, he wouldn’t melt away in the light of the sun? 

Merciful Sothis, Yuri murmurs to himself, don’t let me forget them. In Kingdom legends, the dead live in a frozen place beneath the ground, doomed to suffer until they are avenged. Sothis, bring peace to their souls, but don’t force them back up into the light. 

Let the earth hold them close a little longer. 

\---

The night that Byleth is supposed to be fighting his way into the Imperial palace in Enbarr, Hapi takes them to a secret hideout of hers. All the wolves have made little dens in Abyss, places and hideouts no one else knows about. It’s not meant to be offensive, just the natural reaction to having everything taken from you again and again. 

Yuri knows it means a lot for Hapi to give up the location of this one. 

The spot is a ruined chapel, probably hundreds of years old, maybe as old as Abyss is. But what makes it special isn’t the dusty carvings and worn off faces of saints engraved into the walls. It’s the ceiling. 

The chapel is on the edge of the monastery that plunges off into a steep cliff. Part of the ceiling has fallen in, crushing the altar. Distantly, the stars are visible through a crevice in the cliffs. 

Yuri has brought a bottle of Almyran spiced wine to share. Hapi has a few blankets spread out on the floor beneath the hole in the ceiling. 

Dimitri joins them, looking small despite his height. He does not really know what to do with himself in social situations. Hapi pats the blanket pointedly a few times to get him to sit down. 

“It’s warmer,” Dimitri says after a few moments of staring up at the tiny window of stars. 

“The Blue Sea star should be out soon,” Hapi observes, then elbows Yuri, “remind me which one that is again, Yuri-bird?” 

“Hey,” Yuri says with resigned warning. “Enough of that.” 

They sip their wine in silence for another few minutes. Dimitri looks hesitantly as his cup and then swallows a mouthful. 

“You think they’re winning?” Yuri asks to make some conversation. 

“It’s Byleth,” Hapi replies as if that settles the matter. “Besides, I’m sure you have plans even if they don’t.” 

Yuri shrugs. 

“Of course I have plans. I have plans for if the Imperial army takes the monastery and I have plans to get my mom out if the Kingdom falls and I even have plans for if another giant dragon swoops down from the sky and the roof caves in,” Yuri replies airily. 

“I thought I would be there. In Enbarr,” Dimitri says abruptly. Yuri glances at him, unsure how to take that. 

“Not sure you’re quite in fighting shape yet,” Yuri says neutrally. Dimitri nods and draws his knee up to his chest, wrapping his arms around it and then resting his chin there. 

Something in Yuri’s chest does an unpleasant lurch. The blanket is too small. He can feel a bit of Dimitri's body heat against the side of his arm.

Dimitri looks… nice. He’s tall and despite the damage life has done to him, he still has the bone-structure of a storybook hero. The shaggy blonde of his hair shimmers in the faint starlight and Yuri recalls the silky texture of it. And there’s something about his expression, no longer the distant look of the invalid or the animal hatred of the man Yuri had first found, but instead a look of concern and grateful tenderness. 

Shit, Yuri realizes. The goddess is a cruel bitch and he is never praying to her again, because is he seriously eyeing up the King of fucking Faerghus who fell into his sewer? It’s ridiculous. Not just because he is a literal criminal with an unpleasant history of seducing the rich and powerful for access to their coffers and coin. 

It’s also ridiculous because is Yuri _ seriously _ such a lonely horny bastard that all a man has to do is look healthy enough to walk and show any modicum of care for the people of Abyss to have Yuri ripping his trousers off? 

As this crisis is occurring deep beneath Yuri’s veneer of pleasantry, Dimitri is still talking. 

“I think it’s better I’m not there,” he says. “I have a lot of blood on my hands. I see no reason to keep adding to it.” 

“You think you’ll ever let them know you’re alive?” Hapi asks. Dimitri shakes his head. 

“It’s better if I stay dead,” he says. “I’m more… useful when I’m dead.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean, Didi?” Hapi snorts. 

She’s given him one of her nicknames. Fuck. No. That’s only making it worse. If Hapi gives him a nickname, then he’s part of their crew and that means Yuri is officially attached. Shit. 

“Felix can more than handle Faerghus if he has Ingrid and Sylvain by his side,” Dimitri replies. “I’ve destroyed enough of my own people. But if I’m here, letting everyone think I’m dead, I can learn something other than killing.” 

“You don’t think your friends would prefer to know you’re okay?” Hapi suggests. Dimitri shakes his head. 

“Not if… not if they saw me at Gronder,” he finally mumbles. 

“Friend, I’m not sure if you’re trying to insult my admittedly very low standards, but I saw the direct aftermath of Gronder,” Yuri cuts in. “And I haven’t thrown you out of here yet.” 

Hapi finishes the bottle of wine and then looks like she is repressing a desire to sigh long and heavy. 

“I’m getting another,” she announces, popping up to her feet. “Don’t get too sad without me.” 

Yuri wants to yell at her to come back at once because he does not trust his slightly tipsy self right now, but she is already skipping down the passage back to the main level of Abyss. 

As her footsteps die away, Yuri fixes his eyes firmly on the ceiling and the few pinpricks of light far away in the night sky. 

“I need to apologize to you,” Dimitri says as Yuri is beginning to hope that they won’t have to speak anymore until Hapi gets back. “I don’t remember it all very well, but I know enough to be certain I made things difficult for you when you were saving my life.” 

“Eh, the fleas went away eventually,” Yuri says lightly. Dimitri huffs a sigh. 

“I need to thank you, as well,” Dimitri continues. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but I would rather be alive. Before Gronder, I thought I would die for my revenge, and when I was too weak for that, I saw no point in sustaining my life. But you have done more than just heal me. You showed me a way to… live with myself.” 

“Knock it off,” Yuri scoffs. “I only did it so you’d reward me with my own duchy and now I feel like a sucker.” 

“I know that is not true,” Dimitri replies. Does Yuri imagine the hint of a smile in his voice? 

“Fine,” Yuri relents. “Let’s just call it even, then. You did me a good turn five years ago, I’ve returned the favor.” 

“Yes,” Dimitri says. “I’d almost forgotten. How strange it must be for you to recall the person I was five years ago.” 

“What, repressed and boring?” Yuri jokes. “Although at least your hair was under control.”

As he says it, he realizes his mistake. A faint look of pain flashes across Dimitri’s face.

“Well, you know who was responsible,” he says shakily. “Dedue always took very good care of me.” 

“You still see him?” Yuri asks. Dimitri nods. 

“I see him everywhere, but…” he thinks for a moment. “But it hurts differently now. I don’t feel the same kind of regret.” 

“Regret?” 

“I will always regret my decision at Gronder,” Dimitri says. “But now I also regret that I never told him how I felt. Even if he found it difficult to accept, even if it would have eventually driven him away from me, I wish he had died knowing that I loved him more than anything else in my life. Then at least I could…” 

“Move on?” Yuri suggests. 

“No,” Dimitri says without anger. “No, I do not think I am the sort of person who moves on. We are alike in that way. But I could have had the reassurance that he knew how much all those years of thankless work and care meant.” 

“I’m sure he knew,” Yuri says, the sort of thing one says without any idea if it is true. 

“Perhaps,” Dimitri shrugs. “But that’s why I needed you to thank you as well. For how much you have cared for me.” 

Yuri freezes. 

“Now friend,” Yuri finally says. He is drunker than he realizes. Shit. “I know we have our little repartee, our sensual game of looks and implications, but that does sound strikingly like a proposition.” 

Dimitri’s face flushes. Yuri cackles.

“Oh, none of that,” Yuri laughs. “I’m teasing you. No need to worry about your virtue with me. You might have a delightfully unexpected fondness for men, but I can tell I’m not your type.” 

Dimitri buries his scarlet face in his arms. 

“Sorry,” he mutters. “Um, it’s not that I… I… I’m not sure I can ever feel… that way… again.” 

“Maybe not,” Yuri says lightly. “But don’t count yourself out. You’re easy on the eyes. Maybe you’ll catch the attention of some big muscly fellow down here and find yourself feeling different.” 

Dimitri raises his face. He’s still blushing. 

“Seriously?” 

“Seriously,” Yuri reassures him. “And given that I’ve seen you crawling with head lice and changed your diapers, take the compliment.” 

“Oh no,” Dimitri says, pressing his hands over his eyes again. He looks absolutely mortified. “I’m so sorry.” 

Hapi blessedly returns then with the wine. Perhaps there is a beneficent goddess in the heavens watching Yuri’s back. 

For being one of the slickest characters in Fódlan’s underground, he would never live it down if anyone knew he’d just jokingly propositioned the King of Faerghus while also managing to bring up his dead lover, head lice, and piss. 

The three of them finish a second bottle together before passing out in a heap on the blankets. 

\---

Messengers bring word of a victory in Enbarr. The emperor is dead. The Imperial troops have thrown down their weapons and both Kingdom and Alliance are free again. Yuri waits impatiently for Byleth’s army to return to the monastery. He hopes Rhea is with them. He had a nice arrangement with the Archbishop and he’d feel better knowing she was back at the head of the Church. 

Just like that, the war is over. Abyss feels different already. People are preparing for the inevitable chaos of the aftermath. Yuri is a prudent man and he makes sure that he has informants to report to him which Adrestian nobles are on their way out and which will likely be selling off their valuable heirlooms to stay afloat. 

Yuri knows that Dimitri has heard the news, but he seems to be deliberately not reacting to it. Yuri had wondered if he might feel a weight lifted knowing that Edelgard was finally dead, but he doesn’t act like it. To everyone in Abyss, he’s still just Blink, doctor’s assistant, big man, bit of a limp and no right eye, quiet but gentle. He still hurries silently from door to door to deliver Hazel’s tonics or purchase the herbs someone has gathered up in the sunlight. 

When the Resistance army arrives back at Garreg Mach, Constance and Balthus return to Abyss looking weary but deeply relieved. Yuri buys them both a drink but they bring it to the classroom so they can talk privately. 

“Byleth did it himself, in the end,” Balthus says with a shake of his head. “She had every opportunity to surrender, but…” 

“Hubert is dead as well, naturally,” Constance says, a bit less self-assured than usual. “Ferdinand was very… broken up about it. Odd given those two never got along.” 

“Any unexpected faces?” Yuri asks. His journal presses against his side. He still has business with a group of masked mages and he has a long memory. 

“Yeah, actually, now that you mention it,” Balthus recalls. “You remember that Dedue fellow you were asking about last month? Big fella? Good with his fists like me?” 

Yuri has a brief and horrible moment where his mind forces him to imagine the nightmarish scenario of Balthus sweeping Dimitri off of his feet. 

“What about him?” Yuri finally manages to ask when his tongue is back under his control. 

“He showed up,” Balthus says and then shrugs. “Thought you’d be interested.” 

“What do you mean he showed up?” Yuri repeats. “He’s dead.” 

“He was most spritely for a dead man, then,” Constance says. “I saw him as well. He joined us in the throne room. Were it not for Byleth’s uncannily quick thinking, I believe he would have been taken down by mages, but he assisted in the fight and then vanished as we were clearing the city.”

“If this is your idea of a joke--” Yuri begins, but already he can tell this is no joke. “How the hell is he alive?” 

“Perhaps in the same way that your little friend Blink is still alive?” Constance suggests. “Gronder Field was a chaotic battle. Fire and smoke. Three different armies. Is it really so unlikely that the missing were counted among the dead?” 

“It’s not,” Yuri says and slams his cup down on the desk. “I just-- I don’t like not knowing things.” 

“Boss?” Balthus asks as Yuri stalks towards the door. “Where are you going? We’ve got more to report, there’s a letter--”

“Save it,” Yuri calls over his shoulder.

So Dedue is alive. Dedue is alive. Yuri’s heart pounds as he walks rapidly to his office. If Dedue is alive, what does this mean? And if he’s vanished again, then where the hell did he go? 

When he gets back to his office, there is a single, stupid moment, where Yuri imagines a scenario where he simply lets this go. In this absurd reality, no one ever mentions a thing to Dimitri and he never has to know. Dimitri stays and Dimitri grows to be a part of Abyss. He heals people and he drinks with the wolves and he stops staring off into the distance sometimes without meaning to. And they pray together. And maybe even fuck sometimes, who knows? 

When that profoundly embarrassing fantasy is over, Yuri takes out his notebook and lays it on the table. He’s never had to erase a name before. 

Yuri knocks hard at Dimitri’s door when he reaches the storeroom. Dimitri answers in a moment. He’s dressed very simply and seems to have been in the middle of eating by the light of a single candle. His hair hangs over the bandage wrapping his eye and his hands are dry from a day plunging in and out of soapy water. 

“Yuri,” he says with faint surprise, “is there something you--?” 

“Dedue is alive,” Yuri interrupts him. 

Dimitri goes still. He squeezes his eye shut a few times and then shakes his head. 

“No,” he says shakily. “That’s not… why are you saying this?” 

“Dedue is alive,” Yuri repeats. “He fought the emperor with Byleth and then he vanished. Balthus and Constance both saw him. He survived the battle and he is still out there.” 

Dimitri stumbles back and sits on the edge of his cot. He puts his hands over his ears, as if he can stop listening to Yuri’s words. 

“That isn’t possible,” Dimitri whispers. 

“Dimitri, he’s  _ alive _ ,” Yuri says, kneeling down beside him and smiling with just the corner of his mouth. “I think this is usually what people call a miracle.” 

“No,” Dimitri shakes his head again. “No, I can’t listen to this.” 

“You said you had regrets, but you have another chance,” Yuri urges him. “If he knew you’d survived, you know he would be here. All we have to do is find him.” 

“Don’t, please, don't,” Dimitri says, his voice has turned to a tone of pleading. Yuri gets being overwhelmed by the news, but he hadn’t expected this. “Don’t find him. Just let it be. Please, just let it be.” 

Yuri watches as he curls his arms up over his head again, like he had for all those weeks of suffering at the edge of death. 

“What the hell is this?” Yuri finally asks. 

“I don’t want to see him,” Dimitri begs. His voice is very strained. “Please, just don’t do anything. I want to stay here.” 

“You can stay as long as you’d like, friend,” Yuri says. “But are you seriously telling me that you would rather let the man you claimed you  _ loved  _ think that you’re dead?” 

A sort of shudder runs over Dimitri. 

“Yes,” he admits. “Yes. Let him think that. It’s better that way.” 

“You are…” Yuri shakes his head. This is pathetic. He cannot stomach it. “Such a damned coward.” 

He leaves without another word. 

\---

Hapi finds him a few nights later. He’s up on the monastery walls, getting in his fresh air while it’s dark and most of the monastery is asleep. 

“Hey, Yuri-bird,” Hapi’s droll little voice calls out to him as he slinks across towards the gardens. “Stargazing again?” 

“You know, when all my people lose respect for me and we’re out of a place to sleep,” Yuri quips back, “you’ll regret this.” 

“Eh, you live in a tunnel,” Hapi shrugs. “Why should anyone care if you think the earth is flat and the sun goes round the moon?” 

She is sitting cross-legged on the ledge overlooking the cathedral. With Rhea back now, Hapi doesn’t seem pleased. 

“Anymore fun or can I go about my business?” Yuri asks. Hapi pats the wall beside her. Yuri stays standing. She pats it more instantly, her palm smacking against the stone. He relents. 

“I heard you told Dimitri about Dedue turning up,” Hapi says once he has sat beside her. “He didn’t take it well?” 

“He’s a nobleman,” Yuri says stiffly. “Despite how he acts, they’re always like that. Talk a big game about how they’d risk everything for their commoner lovers, but when the moment comes to take the leap, they freeze.” 

“You really think that’s it?” 

“Sure I do,” Yuri smiles tightly. “Once burned, ever the wiser, you know?” 

“You don’t think he’s maybe just… scared?” Hapi suggests. “Scared of being rejected?” 

Yuri snorts. 

“The man fought his way into the emperor’s palace in Dimitri’s name,” he says, “even if they don’t get married, I’m pretty sure rejection isn’t on the table for a bond like that.” 

“So what are you gonna do?” Hapi asks. She is looking at him with those big, odd eyes of hers. It makes him feel uncomfortably seen. “I mean, I know you care about him.” 

“I care as much as he keeps Abyss safe--” 

“Save it! Ugh, you’re so obnoxious,” Hapi groans. “You tease everyone who so much as breathes at you with all your flirty banter, but then when the moment comes, you start rambling about protecting your little crime gang. It spoils the mood, Yuri!” 

“Fine!” Yuri retorts. “He’s good looking. Alright? But I’m not breaking my adorable little heart over him, Hapi. I’ve already sent people to search Duscur and Byleth has promised me he’ll deploy a battalion out to gather intel so I can put an end to this Dimitri nonsense. He annoys me to death and I am tired of taking care of him. I don’t make a very good nursemaid; I’m not the type.” 

“Oh, Yuri-bird,” Hapi laughs. She ruffles his hair which is frankly offensive. “You totally are.”

But then she wraps him into a delighted hug and he forgets to be irritated with her.

“Well, well, well, Hapi,” he can’t help but tease. “What have I done to deserve this?” 

“I’m a cynic,” she says and then raises a skeptical eyebrow at the distant silhouette of the cathedral. “But you? You have the most surprising faith in people.” 

\---

Dimitri comes to his quarters a few weeks later looking like a kicked dog. He’s not eating well, Yuri observes. His face is getting thin and boney. 

“Can we talk?” he asks quietly when Yuri merely raises an eyebrow at his presence. 

“About what?” Yuri asks coolly.    


“You know about what,” Dimitri mumbles. 

“I’d like you to say it,” Yuri says. He’s being petty and he knows it. 

“I want to talk about Dedue,” Dimitri says through gritted teeth. 

“Sit down then, friend,” Yuri invites him in. “I’ll make a pot of tea.” 

Dimitri sits stiffy on the edge of a wooden chair when Yuri offers it to him. 

“I’ve disappointed you,” he begins to speak very rapidly, as though the words will burst out of him even if he tries to bite them back. “I know that. And you’re right, I am a terrible coward. But I need you to understand why, I need you to know this. I’m not… ashamed of my feelings.” 

Yuri quirks an eyebrow. Dimitri continues, his hands balled into frustrated fists at his sides. 

“I’m ashamed of myself,” he says and his voice breaks a bit. 

“For what?” 

“Yuri, I have killed… a lot of people. And so many more have died for my sake,” Dimitri says, clearly fighting a lump in his throat. His eye is fixed on the floor. “I know that for each person I try to help, there are so many more who I can never… never bring back.” 

“I thought we were talking about Dedue,” Yuri sighs. “You got me all excited to discuss your great big handsome retainer and now you’re boring me with guilt. Yawn, Dimitri, yawn."

Dimitri looks up, apparently distracted from his slightly hysterical confession. 

“You’re just… saying yawn,” he says in confusion. “You aren’t yawning.” 

“Nevermind,” Yuri shrugs. “Let’s just skip past all this dull self-loathing bullshit for a moment. You’re absolved or whatever. I’m the priest of crime and I say, go forth free and seek out massive loyal men with gentle hands.” 

“Please don’t say that,” Dimitri looks morose. 

“You don’t think he has gentle hands?” Yuri asks. “Come on, Dimitri. I know you’ve thought about it. At least once when you were alone in your little dormitory upstairs…” 

“I came here to explain myself,” Dimitri complains although his face has already turned red again. “And you’re making it difficult.” 

“I’m making it difficult?” Yuri grins wider. “Don’t lie, you’re imagining him right now. Thinking of him in some distant garden braiding flowers into your hair and then leaning down for a kiss.” 

“Stop it!” Dimitri’s voice grows more urgent. “I don’t want that anymore.” 

“Why the hell not?” Yuri turns abruptly from fun to coldly serious. “Who the hell wouldn’t want that? To have the person they love alive and happy and safe with them? Why don’t you want that?”

Dimirti looks up and Yuri sees his face finally crumble. His mouth bows down despite his effort and his brows turn up into an expression of pain. 

“I’m not well,” Dimitri says and then a tiny sob escapes his mouth. He presses his hand to his lips for a second before he tries to speak again. “I’m not healed.” 

Tears begin to slip down from his remaining eye. He wraps his arms around himself. Distantly, Yuri is aware that the water he started for tea is boiling. He doesn’t stand up to pour it yet. Dimitri takes a gasping breath. 

“I still hear… and see things that aren’t there,” he continues. He sniffles a few times, but a wet string of snot is already dangling from his nose. “I can’t make it stop. I feel cursed. I feel lost.” 

A few more sobs shake his shoulders although he suppresses the sound. 

Yuri finally stands up, and presses Dimitri’s head to his body. He stands there and waits until the shaking stops and his breath stops hitching, then he goes to find a handkerchief. He lets Dimitri collect himself for a moment while he finally pours the tea. 

“Thank you,” Dimitri manages to say somewhat steadily when Yuri hands him a chipped cup. 

“Feel better?” Yuri asks. 

“Not really.” 

“The curative power of crying is overrated,” Yuri shrugs. “You know anything about the foundation of Abyss?” 

“No, but--” Dimitri makes a frustrated sound. “You confuse me deeply.” 

“Legend has it the first inhabitant was an Apostle who’d just majorly fucked up a resurrection ritual,” Yuri elaborates. “This place has always been a hideout, a safe haven, a place of solace for broken failures of people. I’m including myself in that category, by the way. But it was never supposed to be a tomb.” 

“What are you saying?” Dimitri asks. 

“I’m saying… resurrection is a gift not even the goddess bestows. Let the dead stay dead. Some stuff doesn’t get fixed. And we need space for even the people who aren’t perfectly healed,” Yuri tells him firmly. “You’ve met plenty of people down here who aren’t going to get better. Would you tell them they’re all doomed to a life of eternal sadness?”

Dimitri shakes his head. 

“You aren’t a ghost, Dimitri,” Yuri says. “Or a dream. You’re alive. At least let him know that.” 

Dimitri is still and then he slowly nods. 

They sit for a moment with the tea. Yuri says a brief prayer to the goddess that someone finds Dedue for him soon. If Dimitri has his way, he’ll probably try to just send the man a heartfelt letter. No sense of style, this one, or drama. 

“You are a good man, Yuri,” Dimitri says unexpectedly. Yuri chokes on his tea. 

“I’m a rogue,” he retorts defensively. 

“You have shown me so much compassion.” 

“I’m a blackhearted swindler!” 

“Hmm, I think not.” 

\---

On the night Rhea loses herself, Yuri goes upstairs. The stone is trembling and dust is showering from the ceiling. Even the toughest bastards in Abyss scream as part of a tunnel comes crumbling down. 

“Get everyone to the aqueduct,” Yuri shouts. “There’s a grate leading out to the Sealed Forest at the end of the west tunnel.” 

Dimitri nods, his arms already full with a few of Hazel’s patients still too weak to walk. 

“Protect them,” Yuri says and clasps his shoulder. “Please.” 

“I will,” Dimitri agrees. 

Yuri and his pack race up to kill a dragon. When he returns, a few people are injured from the falling debris, but Abyss is still standing. He could kiss the damp stone walls and crumbling tile. 

Dimitri is waiting in the aqueduct. Yuri watches him pass his hands over a woman with a bleeding gash across her eyebrow and the blood stops spilling over her face. Yuri lets out a long breath. He has dragon blood on his sword. Nothing seems real. 

But Abyss is there, as persistent and unkillable as a roach. 

Usually, prayers are requests. Dear Sothis, please fix my life. Dear Sothis, please assuage my guilt. Sothis, heal up this cut and send this soul to eternal peace. Sothis, be a dear and just redeem my soul, wouldn’t you? 

That night, Yuri offers a simple prayer of thanks. 

\---

When Yuri receives the letter, he shares it with the other wolves. All of them lend a hand. 

Balthus plays the invalid, gamely agreeing to pretend he’s broken out in strange weeping sores. Constance plays the magician, there to meet an old friend at the greenhouse before she mysteriously vanishes. And Hapi, as usual, she’s the lookout. She watches the sky. 

“Look, boss, I’m really hurting here,” Balthus complains, hamming it up as he pretends to scratch under his collar. “Can’t you get something faster?” 

“I bet the greenhouse upstairs has something,” Yuri shrugs. “I’m not much of an herbalist, though.” 

“I’m sorry,” Dimitri grimaces. “I wish I had something more to offer, but the aloe plant is the only thing I can think of to ease the pain.” 

“Look, it’s still night,” Yuri decides. “I say we just sneak upstairs and harvest a few plants now. I’ll pay back his most holy royal ruler of Fódlan later. Byleth can spare a few leaves.” 

“I suppose I could draw you a picture of it…” Dimitri says doubtfully. “If you have truly never seen an aloe plant.” 

“Come with me,” Yuri rolls his eyes. “We’ll be back before you know it. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a few seconds of open sky?” 

“I am,” Dimitri sighs. Balthus groans loudly for emphasis. “But… I must try to overcome it.” 

“Glad to hear it, friend,” Yuri says. “There’s an old well near the pond. Let’s take the stairs.” 

The sky is greyish blue when they emerge onto the monastery grounds. It is nearing dawn. The air is cool, early spring. Yuri spots a few fading stars on the horizon. Who the hell knows what they are. 

“Alright, you find what we need, I’ll watch the door,” Yuri says as they approach. He hears the faint sizzle of magic as Constance warps herself away. 

Dimitri steps into the greenhouse and Yuri catches a whiff of flowers and damp earth. In spring, all the plants are blooming. As the horizon glows a pale pink, Yuri sees it light up the thousand shades of the garden. 

A man turns around, probably searching for wherever Constance has vanished off to. He is big, Yuri thinks smugly. His white hair is tied back, and his deep brown skin seems to glow in the pale early light. He wears traveller's clothing, a scarf woven in blue and green. 

When Dimitri sees him, his breath catches. He freezes to the spot. 

“This is a dream,” he says softly. 

Dedue steps forward, quickly closing the distance, and then wraps his arms around Dimitri. He’s probably the only living man in Fódlan who can make Dimitri look small in his embrace. 

“Your highness,” Dedue says desperately. 

“Don’t,” Dimitri chokes out. “Don’t.” 

“Dimitri, I thought--” Dedue presses him even tighter to his chest. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m so sorry, Dedue, I’m so, so, sorry,” Dimitri tries to say before words fail him. 

“Thank the goddess,” Dedue says. He pulls back. His green eyes are shining with unshed tears. He presses a kiss to Dimitri’s brow. 

His hands are gentle, Yuri thinks even more smugly. He could gag. It is so pathetically cute. They are sickening. 

Then Dimitri gives him the shock of his life by leaning up and kissing Dedue softly on the lips. 

He pulls back quickly, staring at Dedue as he holds his breath. 

“I should have told you,” Dimitri says hoarsely. 

Even Yuri forgets to breathe for a moment. 

Dedue has gone totally still. He stares at Dimitri, his eyes wide. Dimitri takes a short, pained breath, and squeezes his eye shut. 

Then Dedue takes his face in his hands and kisses him back. It is a long kiss, deep and open-mouthed and unashamedly romantic. 

“Oh fuck this,” Yuri says loudly. Both of them jump. It is extremely funny to see a man as big and solid as Dedue jump. “I owe fifty gold pieces to Balthus now. Fifty! That man has never won a wager in his life, and now I’m out fifty gold because you decided to get over yourself and go for it, you supid,  _ stupid _ man.” 

Dedue’s brow furrows. He wraps an arm protectively around Dimitri’s shoulder and Yuri sees Dimitri lean longingly into it. Yuri shoots Dimitri a look of pure poison. 

“It is alright, Dedue,” Dimitri says before Dedue can send Yuri sprawling to the dirt with a single well-placed punch. “He is a friend and I think… responsible for most of this.” 

“Ah,” Dedue says. His blush is a bit harder to spot. “My deepest thanks, then.” 

“Enjoy your garden,” Yuri says nastily and then gives Dimitri a wink. “Take good care of each other.” 

He leaves them there in the greenhouse at dawn. He doesn’t blame Dimitri for being too distracted for goodbyes. Both of them look radiant. 

If anyone spotted them, Yuri thinks, no one would imagine they were watching the dead King of Faerghus, at least, not by how he looks now. 

The man standing there amongst the spring flowers looks incredibly, amazingly happy. His smile is dazed and the man holding him stares at him like he is a lost treasure finally recovered. 

“Flying back to the nest, Yuri-bird?” Hapi asks as Yuri makes his way back to the ladder and the well. 

“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Yuri replies as she falls into step beside him. 

“You think Didi’s coming back?” she says, glancing at the spectacular scene in the greenhouse, made wavering and blurry by the glass. 

“I hope not,” Yuri says. “You need sun for a garden.” 

“Maybe they’ll visit,” Hapi says. “I’m… actually thinking I might check in on my village too, now that the war is over.” 

“So many little birds flying home,” Yuri shrugs. “I expect we’ll lose Constance any day now. She and Ferdinand are talking about restoring the Nuvelle manner.” 

“Actually, I was hoping you might go with,” Hapi says. “Just in case I set any monsters loose on my folks. Plus, you can see the sky way better from my village. You might learn something real about the heavens instead of all that Goddess nonsense.” 

Yuri looks at her. He looks at her odd little face and the funny way her hair sticks straight up at the top of her head. Sothis above, he is fond of her. 

“I guess I might like to see the wider world,” Yuri agrees. “Stretch my wings.”

Hapi smiles and both of them turn their eyes up to watch the sun peeking over the horizon. 

**Author's Note:**

> silver snow is a hell of a route huh


End file.
